Not an itunes user, just vaguely curious why Apple is releasing updates in quick succession. Is it a quick succession of Incredible New Features, or more of a quick succession to break 3rd party software compatibility, or a quick succession of bug fixes, or was "hot on the heels" something of an exaggeration, or did they just happen to release 4.8 and 4.9 quickly for no reason other than that's how it happened?
This seems like a suitable challenge to grow your program using mutation & selection and/or crossbreeding methods to create an evolved solution instead of a designed one. Set it up now, and leave some simulations running on a dedicated box or six, 24/7 until the competition. Then take your killer software to the competition.
The coolest bit would be when anyone asks "So, how does your program work?", to which you would answer "I haven't the faintest idea. It just does.":-)
Build a house/castle/boat/whatever, set it on the floor, and THAT'S IT!
I build lego robots, set them on the floor, and off they go to do stuff. They're robots, not models of robots. It's interesting and rewarding.
I have also built robots the good old soldering iron way, but the speed of working with lego can be hard to beat when you start thinking "Y'know - that bump sensor doesn't work as well as I'd like, if I were to move it to there, and change the leverage at that point there, I bet it wouldn't get caught on things like that".
Then later "Oh - I have an even better idea! Let's try it this way!"
You can evolve your robot systems very easily and nicely with lego. A lot of robotics is stuff that you really only learn from experiencing the real-world problems. Experience comes from (among other things) having evaluated many solutions. So even if you're planning a non-lego robot, lego can be useful way to prototype. Me, I'm just having fun, and happy for the lego version to be the final result.
"legos" is only a colloquialism in America. Slashdot is bigger than that. To most of the world, it's always been just Lego, just like how "sheep" is both plural and singular. To most people, "legos" sounds really weird.
I had a guy in my class do an oral presentation about "sheeps" once. It sounded no less glaringly wrong than "legos" (because it was no less glaringly wrong). He had an excuse though - English was his second language.
I'm not saying this guy's not guilty as sin, but you have to think before you lay down blanket laws
No, that is the point of blanket laws - everyone is guilty, which makes it easier for the police to nab the bad guys. (The bad guys being retro-actively defined as "anyone the police nab")
I get the distinct impression that there has been a shift of emphasis in some areas of lawmaking towards writing laws that leave it to police discretion as to who gets convicted as guilty, because pretty much everyone is guilty, so convictions are easy once someone is charged, so it's just left to the police to decide whether or not to bring charges.
Current police complaints that it is too hard to prove kiddie pr0n involved child abuse has prompted a bill that would outlaw even a pencil sketch that someone might interpret as being underaged, and interpret as titilating. If that kind of crap passes, anyone who watches anime is guilty. Add to that, everyone has nekkid kids in the family photo album, and those pictures have already been included in prosecutions.
So everyone is already guilty. We just trust the police to only prosecute the bad apples, not the rest of us.
And the police record here is spotless of course, since anyone they prosecute is undoubtably a bad apple.:)
So, if I go to a pr0n site, the images in the cache are mine and thus I can be prosecuted for them if they're illegal, but if I go to the new Batman movie website, the images in the cache are not mine - I would instead get prosecuted for treating the images as mine, such as by printing them on t-shirts to sell.
So... (struggling to reconcile the difference) that would mean that possession isn't 9/10ths of ownership...
Or something...
whatever.
:)
Re:Techie, but lots of areas
on
Makers of MAKE
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· Score: 1
I kind of wondered about the viability of a dead-tree magazine for hackers in the age of the URL
When you're hacking around with tools, tech-trash, and consumer products, instead of on a computer, it's usually necessary (or least highly desirable) to have your reference on paper, with you as you work.
I have a computer monitor on my workbench, as well as a wireless tablet-pc, and yet even when working from URL reference material, I often find it's quicker and easier to print the material out - a sheet of paper is a formidable tool on a workbench.
So I think dead-tree is still central to hacking.:)
and just plain uglier than the commercially produced equivalents
I have a different view - most commerical stuff is crap, and I can do better. Either it's crap because it's cheap and badly designed, or, (more likely) it's crap because modern mass-production technology is very limited in what it can do. Seriously, surprisingly limited. That's why so much crap is hand-made in cheap-labour countries - because for so many things, hand-made is the ONLY way that's possible to make it.
Now, flip that around.
Nothing, NOTHING can make objects that are a patch on what a highly qualified individual can make, if they have the time and tools to do so.
In some industries, such as bespoke suit tailoring, people will pay $4000 for a one-off masterpiece tailored to their body, while most people buy off-the-shelf. But in a lot of industries (particularly gadgets), mass-produced is the only offering, because the cost of hiring an engineering team to do a one-off masterpiece for you simply precludes it being commerically viable. Custom-made furniture likewise.
But if YOU are the engineer (or designer, or capenter, or whatever), and it's your hobby, you just wiped $10000 off the bill, so you can afford to produce products the way they should be - not the closest approximation to the ideal that mass-production is capable of reaching. Or you can customise exisitng things into something better.
It's especially apparent in toys. Look at the difference between a top of the line barbie playset, and the kind of doll house created by adult enthusiests. The adult one is some ways less durable to play, in other ways more durable to play, but it's infinitely better, but costs orders of magnitude more.
DIY offers a way to get things that almost don't exist any more - objects that are at the pinnicle of human technological and artistic achievement.
Plus, you know, your cellphone looks better covered in rhinestoms with "I [heart] Sam!" written on it while the LEDs flash:-) (Personalisation of products is not in the same category, but I support it on general principle that off-the-shelf sucks. Custom is better, even if everyone thinks it's ugly, except you:-)
People who make their own stuff have confidence and control.
Yes. You hesitate for fear of making a problem worse, but with time and experience, you reach a point where you find that you're more than capable of fixing any mistakes you make. Once you're operating beyond that point, the fears and risks evaporate, you can do anything (almost). Any problems you create, you can fix, so you don't need to worry any more, you can create on making/changing/fixing.
What's REALLY cool, is seeing a surgeon or a vetrinarian operating beyond that point in surgery.
The closest thing I've done to this is put a "captain's log" and email address cards in a bottle in the ocean. The idea was that a finder would update the log (when/where it was found), take an email card, and then throw it back out to sea. Upon using the email address, its course could be charted on a website.
But I never heard from it again...:-(
I imagine you have to do these things in bulk to get results. Maybe someday I'll make a hundred of them:-)
I'm an avid photoshop user (pro even, wooo...), but the kludgy photoshop interface that scatters mouse buttons onto the keyboard instead of keeping them on the mouse (eg click for one function, shift-click for another, etc) means it does not translate as seamlessly as other apps do to some of the evolutions in interface technology that have occurred since photoshop began - photoshop only really works if you're using something very similar to the mouse+keyboard interface that the early versions were designed for.
I draw on a tablet-PC for some production, and the problem with photoshop of course, is that it needs a keyboard in tandem with the wacom pen, so I can't fold the keybaord away and use the tablet-PC like a sketchpad if I'm using photoshop. (Ok, technically I can, since the tablet-PC offers a virtual keyboard option, but it's a workaround for photoshop's interface, not a fix).
My suspicion, even though I have not heard of Acrylic until this moment, and that I am pulling out of my ass, is that MS will be making this drawing app such that in addition to whatever they're trying to acheive with it, it is better suited to the modern pen interface than photoshop, thus killing an extra bird with one stone - making the tablet-PC even more attractive as an art machine / sketchpad.
" Will intel incorporate a tasteful logo on the new macs?"
Apple rules their branding with an iron fist. Any agreement Intel has with manufacturers will be along the lines of "use the sticker, get a small discount" or similar business arangement - ie, something to be negotiated, not carved in stone. Whether or not an intel sticker goes on the mac will be entirely up to apple. And if they do choose to put intel on the boxes, the apple design department will have a big say as to how and where.
You won't get anywhere near the amps you need out of betavoltaic batteries. Generally, yor're not talking amps at all, you're probably not even talking milli-amps, but micro-amps. The new improvement allows them to be significantly better to the point where they can be barely useful, ie, no longer nano-amps and almost completely useless, like they always have been.
Obviously, if you have unlimited money you can just keep making the battery bigger until it serves, but realistically, betavoltaics are the last thing that will power a computer. Driving part of a computer as a memory-backup on the other hand...
There's a lot of independant companies here in Redmond that have no association with MS in any way.
No, they're all associated with MS, in the sense that Redmond was a sleepy semi-rural town until MS made it a sufficent tech hub for these business to want to operate here. Without MS and it's influence on Redmond, the vast majority of companies in Redmond would be no different to what you see in sleepy semi-rural towns, and the population would lack the concentration of the tech people that makes it a viable location all these "no association" companies.
Right now, there are all sorts of tech, software, medical, etc companies, and then a whole 'nother layer of retail and service companies that are sustainable because of the higher-than-usual income brackets in the area.
All these unassociated companies are all from Microsoft's effect on Redmond.
Well, not all, but enough that I wouldn't sweat the Redmond=Billy.teh.G associations people have.
The U.S. should want to encourage innovation inside, not outside its borders, however. By allowing foreign government agencies to apply for patents, it is encouraging innovation outside of the U.S. They would do better to ban such patent applications by governments and thereby encourage the invention inside the U.S.
Uh... stop and think about what you're saying. The USA economy depends on international patents FAR more than these other countries. It would be shooting yourself in the foot.
If the US decreed that foreign entities couldn't hold patents in the US, then every country in the world is going to say "Fair enough, but same goes to you" and then promptly cease sending billions on US pharmaceutical companies, because it costs mere pennies to make the pills once foreign (ie US) patents are no-longer valid.
Same would go for Microsoft's sales revenues if the US decides that foreigners are stopped from owning copyrights in the USA.
Ok, maybe foreigners should be denied copyrights:-)
I do think you're over reacting a bit. I agree that sexualising children is wrong, but surely you're aware that a lot of children are taking cues from older segments of society and sexualising themselves quite happily without any conspiracy of "kiddie diddlers". Go out on any Friday night, and you'll see that not a single 25 year old dresses as sexually provocatively as the average 14 year old, not even the prostitutes.
I can't tell you how many times I've been out and seen a girl where I honestly couldn't work out the faintest clue as to how old she was - anywhere between 15 and 26. I'm in my 20s and not the least bit interested in anyone under 21, but in some cases, you genuinely can't tell from looks alone.
It's a pain in ass, but it's life, so I think going near-ballistic because someone dares observe that 15 year olds can be (and often are) sexual is a little baffling. I know one very sexy, gorgeous 24-year-old night-clubbing girl who has even commented out-of-the-blue that she really doesn't like going to all-ages events because the 14 year olds make her feel so unsexy and plain in comparison.
And I guarentee you she isn't creepily projecting fantasies on those girls. Many, if not most 14 year olds are NOT asexual chidren. They are sexual beings. You don't have to like it (I don't, she doesn't), but that's the way the world is.
If you actually take a look at the guy with the "coming of age" clock, you should notice pretty quickly that he actually seems to be trying to make your point - it's clearly not a genuine site (the photo isn't real, not even the clock is real - it counts the character, not the actor). It's purpose seems to be to make counters look really revolting. It succeeds wonderfully.
If I was in her shoes, I'd keep doing it for as long as it took for my paychecks to drop down to 5 figures, then I'd retire. After buying an island to retire on.:)
I would guess at bremsstrahlung, it seems far too active for the glass to be a likely candidate. I never paid much attention to it.
Why not could get yourself one to check out? I'm assuming you're in the USA, which, for reasons of "public safety" decrees that consumers must use tritium to enhance their guns rather than their keyrings, so you could buy some gunsights or a military style tritium compass to put on your keyring, or check out ebay - I've seen sellers sell the right keyrings with shipping to USA (sometimes there is no mention of tritium in the product description, but you can tell what it is. Sometimes it says it in the description).
Whatever you get, get it new. I once bought a trit sight on ebay, still in the unopened package, but the packaging was faded and dusty, it had clearly been sitting on a shelf for many years, and the glow was all but gone. I suspect many of the military compasses in the surplus market will be the same - surplus precisely because they've outlived most of their tritium.
It's an ancient no-name model with a 486/66 chip, 4mb ram, a 300mb hard drive, and completely dead battery.
Didn't the batteries of those old things have NiCd cells? Dead easy to take the battery apart, construct one out of modern NiMH cells (you'd probably get a 5 hour battery life!) and then you could load it up with classic DOS games that are hell to get running on a modern machine. Then it's not something old and crappy any more, it's something retro and cool:-)
A nuclear battery that could last 10 years would be way better, not only for the users of the batteries, but also for the environment. Think about how much energy you have to use to charge a laptop
As far as I can tell, this is highly unrealistic. By improving the energy gain orders of magnitude, they're making nuclear batteries just barely viable. We're most likely talking miniscule amounts of power, but for a long period of time, not the massive amounts of power needed to run a laptop. The number of layers needed to accumulate a consumer-electronics level of charge is astronomical. Their system does involve the gas being inside microscopic pieces of silicon, so the possibility of astronomical numbers can't be ruled out alltogether, but assuming that that's even possible, the cost of lithographic producing such vast battery arrays suggests these will not be consumer-useful technology for some time, if ever.
What I suspect you'll see this used in initially is very low-drain long-term applications, closer in function to memory capacitors than to power supplies.
I should clarify a bit: Alpha particles are the ones that can be stopped with paper. Betas are a lot more penetrating. The article suggests, however, that tritium is the isotope in mind for the batteries, and tritium produces very very weak betas, which are much less penetrating than most. Lots of my (pretty basic) gear has no problem detecting tritium betas through the crystal capsule that contains it, so I think it's safe to say tritium betas can penetrate paper (what percentage of them can penetrate paper is, as always, a different matter), but at the end of the day, they are still easily sheilded, and if a sheet of paper doesn't stop them, keep adding sheets until it does:-) (Ok, so "keep adding paper" would work even for high energy gamma, but the point is that you shouldn't need many in the case of tritium.:)
So - betas can't be stopped by paper, that's alpha particles, but in the specific case of tritium betas, being particually weak, several sheets should do it.
Slashdot Mirror
Not an itunes user, just vaguely curious why Apple is releasing updates in quick succession. Is it a quick succession of Incredible New Features, or more of a quick succession to break 3rd party software compatibility, or a quick succession of bug fixes, or was "hot on the heels" something of an exaggeration, or did they just happen to release 4.8 and 4.9 quickly for no reason other than that's how it happened?
This seems like a suitable challenge to grow your program using mutation & selection and/or crossbreeding methods to create an evolved solution instead of a designed one. Set it up now, and leave some simulations running on a dedicated box or six, 24/7 until the competition. Then take your killer software to the competition.
:-)
The coolest bit would be when anyone asks "So, how does your program work?", to which you would answer "I haven't the faintest idea. It just does."
Build a house/castle/boat/whatever, set it on the floor, and THAT'S IT!
I build lego robots, set them on the floor, and off they go to do stuff. They're robots, not models of robots. It's interesting and rewarding.
I have also built robots the good old soldering iron way, but the speed of working with lego can be hard to beat when you start thinking "Y'know - that bump sensor doesn't work as well as I'd like, if I were to move it to there, and change the leverage at that point there, I bet it wouldn't get caught on things like that".
Then later "Oh - I have an even better idea! Let's try it this way!"
You can evolve your robot systems very easily and nicely with lego. A lot of robotics is stuff that you really only learn from experiencing the real-world problems. Experience comes from (among other things) having evaluated many solutions. So even if you're planning a non-lego robot, lego can be useful way to prototype. Me, I'm just having fun, and happy for the lego version to be the final result.
"legos" is only a colloquialism in America. Slashdot is bigger than that. To most of the world, it's always been just Lego, just like how "sheep" is both plural and singular. To most people, "legos" sounds really weird.
I had a guy in my class do an oral presentation about "sheeps" once. It sounded no less glaringly wrong than "legos" (because it was no less glaringly wrong). He had an excuse though - English was his second language.
I'm not saying this guy's not guilty as sin, but you have to think before you lay down blanket laws
:)
No, that is the point of blanket laws - everyone is guilty, which makes it easier for the police to nab the bad guys. (The bad guys being retro-actively defined as "anyone the police nab")
I get the distinct impression that there has been a shift of emphasis in some areas of lawmaking towards writing laws that leave it to police discretion as to who gets convicted as guilty, because pretty much everyone is guilty, so convictions are easy once someone is charged, so it's just left to the police to decide whether or not to bring charges.
Current police complaints that it is too hard to prove kiddie pr0n involved child abuse has prompted a bill that would outlaw even a pencil sketch that someone might interpret as being underaged, and interpret as titilating. If that kind of crap passes, anyone who watches anime is guilty. Add to that, everyone has nekkid kids in the family photo album, and those pictures have already been included in prosecutions.
So everyone is already guilty. We just trust the police to only prosecute the bad apples, not the rest of us.
And the police record here is spotless of course, since anyone they prosecute is undoubtably a bad apple.
So, if I go to a pr0n site, the images in the cache are mine and thus I can be prosecuted for them if they're illegal, but if I go to the new Batman movie website, the images in the cache are not mine - I would instead get prosecuted for treating the images as mine, such as by printing them on t-shirts to sell.
:)
So... (struggling to reconcile the difference) that would mean that possession isn't 9/10ths of ownership...
Or something...
whatever.
I kind of wondered about the viability of a dead-tree magazine for hackers in the age of the URL
:)
When you're hacking around with tools, tech-trash, and consumer products, instead of on a computer, it's usually necessary (or least highly desirable) to have your reference on paper, with you as you work.
I have a computer monitor on my workbench, as well as a wireless tablet-pc, and yet even when working from URL reference material, I often find it's quicker and easier to print the material out - a sheet of paper is a formidable tool on a workbench.
So I think dead-tree is still central to hacking.
and just plain uglier than the commercially produced equivalents
:-) :-)
I have a different view - most commerical stuff is crap, and I can do better. Either it's crap because it's cheap and badly designed, or, (more likely) it's crap because modern mass-production technology is very limited in what it can do. Seriously, surprisingly limited. That's why so much crap is hand-made in cheap-labour countries - because for so many things, hand-made is the ONLY way that's possible to make it.
Now, flip that around.
Nothing, NOTHING can make objects that are a patch on what a highly qualified individual can make, if they have the time and tools to do so.
In some industries, such as bespoke suit tailoring, people will pay $4000 for a one-off masterpiece tailored to their body, while most people buy off-the-shelf. But in a lot of industries (particularly gadgets), mass-produced is the only offering, because the cost of hiring an engineering team to do a one-off masterpiece for you simply precludes it being commerically viable. Custom-made furniture likewise.
But if YOU are the engineer (or designer, or capenter, or whatever), and it's your hobby, you just wiped $10000 off the bill, so you can afford to produce products the way they should be - not the closest approximation to the ideal that mass-production is capable of reaching. Or you can customise exisitng things into something better.
It's especially apparent in toys. Look at the difference between a top of the line barbie playset, and the kind of doll house created by adult enthusiests. The adult one is some ways less durable to play, in other ways more durable to play, but it's infinitely better, but costs orders of magnitude more.
DIY offers a way to get things that almost don't exist any more - objects that are at the pinnicle of human technological and artistic achievement.
Plus, you know, your cellphone looks better covered in rhinestoms with "I [heart] Sam!" written on it while the LEDs flash
(Personalisation of products is not in the same category, but I support it on general principle that off-the-shelf sucks. Custom is better, even if everyone thinks it's ugly, except you
People who make their own stuff have confidence and control.
Yes. You hesitate for fear of making a problem worse, but with time and experience, you reach a point where you find that you're more than capable of fixing any mistakes you make. Once you're operating beyond that point, the fears and risks evaporate, you can do anything (almost). Any problems you create, you can fix, so you don't need to worry any more, you can create on making/changing/fixing.
What's REALLY cool, is seeing a surgeon or a vetrinarian operating beyond that point in surgery.
The closest thing I've done to this is put a "captain's log" and email address cards in a bottle in the ocean. The idea was that a finder would update the log (when/where it was found), take an email card, and then throw it back out to sea. Upon using the email address, its course could be charted on a website.
:-(
:-)
But I never heard from it again...
I imagine you have to do these things in bulk to get results. Maybe someday I'll make a hundred of them
I'm an avid photoshop user (pro even, wooo...), but the kludgy photoshop interface that scatters mouse buttons onto the keyboard instead of keeping them on the mouse (eg click for one function, shift-click for another, etc) means it does not translate as seamlessly as other apps do to some of the evolutions in interface technology that have occurred since photoshop began - photoshop only really works if you're using something very similar to the mouse+keyboard interface that the early versions were designed for.
I draw on a tablet-PC for some production, and the problem with photoshop of course, is that it needs a keyboard in tandem with the wacom pen, so I can't fold the keybaord away and use the tablet-PC like a sketchpad if I'm using photoshop. (Ok, technically I can, since the tablet-PC offers a virtual keyboard option, but it's a workaround for photoshop's interface, not a fix).
My suspicion, even though I have not heard of Acrylic until this moment, and that I am pulling out of my ass, is that MS will be making this drawing app such that in addition to whatever they're trying to acheive with it, it is better suited to the modern pen interface than photoshop, thus killing an extra bird with one stone - making the tablet-PC even more attractive as an art machine / sketchpad.
Any other tablet-PC users here tried Acrylic yet?
" Will intel incorporate a tasteful logo on the new macs?"
Apple rules their branding with an iron fist. Any agreement Intel has with manufacturers will be along the lines of "use the sticker, get a small discount" or similar business arangement - ie, something to be negotiated, not carved in stone. Whether or not an intel sticker goes on the mac will be entirely up to apple. And if they do choose to put intel on the boxes, the apple design department will have a big say as to how and where.
You won't get anywhere near the amps you need out of betavoltaic batteries. Generally, yor're not talking amps at all, you're probably not even talking milli-amps, but micro-amps. The new improvement allows them to be significantly better to the point where they can be barely useful, ie, no longer nano-amps and almost completely useless, like they always have been.
Obviously, if you have unlimited money you can just keep making the battery bigger until it serves, but realistically, betavoltaics are the last thing that will power a computer. Driving part of a computer as a memory-backup on the other hand...
There's a lot of independant companies here in Redmond that have no association with MS in any way.
No, they're all associated with MS, in the sense that Redmond was a sleepy semi-rural town until MS made it a sufficent tech hub for these business to want to operate here. Without MS and it's influence on Redmond, the vast majority of companies in Redmond would be no different to what you see in sleepy semi-rural towns, and the population would lack the concentration of the tech people that makes it a viable location all these "no association" companies.
Right now, there are all sorts of tech, software, medical, etc companies, and then a whole 'nother layer of retail and service companies that are sustainable because of the higher-than-usual income brackets in the area.
All these unassociated companies are all from Microsoft's effect on Redmond.
Well, not all, but enough that I wouldn't sweat the Redmond=Billy.teh.G associations people have.
The U.S. should want to encourage innovation inside, not outside its borders, however. By allowing foreign government agencies to apply for patents, it is encouraging innovation outside of the U.S.
:-)
They would do better to ban such patent applications by governments and thereby encourage the invention inside the U.S.
Uh... stop and think about what you're saying. The USA economy depends on international patents FAR more than these other countries. It would be shooting yourself in the foot.
If the US decreed that foreign entities couldn't hold patents in the US, then every country in the world is going to say "Fair enough, but same goes to you" and then promptly cease sending billions on US pharmaceutical companies, because it costs mere pennies to make the pills once foreign (ie US) patents are no-longer valid.
Same would go for Microsoft's sales revenues if the US decides that foreigners are stopped from owning copyrights in the USA.
Ok, maybe foreigners should be denied copyrights
I do think you're over reacting a bit. I agree that sexualising children is wrong, but surely you're aware that a lot of children are taking cues from older segments of society and sexualising themselves quite happily without any conspiracy of "kiddie diddlers". Go out on any Friday night, and you'll see that not a single 25 year old dresses as sexually provocatively as the average 14 year old, not even the prostitutes.
I can't tell you how many times I've been out and seen a girl where I honestly couldn't work out the faintest clue as to how old she was - anywhere between 15 and 26. I'm in my 20s and not the least bit interested in anyone under 21, but in some cases, you genuinely can't tell from looks alone.
It's a pain in ass, but it's life, so I think going near-ballistic because someone dares observe that 15 year olds can be (and often are) sexual is a little baffling. I know one very sexy, gorgeous 24-year-old night-clubbing girl who has even commented out-of-the-blue that she really doesn't like going to all-ages events because the 14 year olds make her feel so unsexy and plain in comparison.
And I guarentee you she isn't creepily projecting fantasies on those girls. Many, if not most 14 year olds are NOT asexual chidren. They are sexual beings. You don't have to like it (I don't, she doesn't), but that's the way the world is.
If you actually take a look at the guy with the "coming of age" clock, you should notice pretty quickly that he actually seems to be trying to make your point - it's clearly not a genuine site (the photo isn't real, not even the clock is real - it counts the character, not the actor). It's purpose seems to be to make counters look really revolting. It succeeds wonderfully.
I really want to put a link to the Jason Killingsworth Hermione Countdown here, but the domain is gone.
Here is a link to it in the web archive. Their server seems to be having difficulty at the moment. It may not load properly.
she's 15. if anyone over 17 goes looking for that, they might have a problem.
I really want to put a link to the Jason Killingsworth Hermione Countdown here, but the domain is gone. Too much hatemail I guess.
How long are they going to make these things for?
:)
If I was in her shoes, I'd keep doing it for as long as it took for my paychecks to drop down to 5 figures, then I'd retire. After buying an island to retire on.
I would guess at bremsstrahlung, it seems far too active for the glass to be a likely candidate. I never paid much attention to it.
Why not could get yourself one to check out? I'm assuming you're in the USA, which, for reasons of "public safety" decrees that consumers must use tritium to enhance their guns rather than their keyrings, so you could buy some gunsights or a military style tritium compass to put on your keyring, or check out ebay - I've seen sellers sell the right keyrings with shipping to USA (sometimes there is no mention of tritium in the product description, but you can tell what it is. Sometimes it says it in the description).
Whatever you get, get it new. I once bought a trit sight on ebay, still in the unopened package, but the packaging was faded and dusty, it had clearly been sitting on a shelf for many years, and the glow was all but gone. I suspect many of the military compasses in the surplus market will be the same - surplus precisely because they've outlived most of their tritium.
It's an ancient no-name model with a 486/66 chip, 4mb ram, a 300mb hard drive, and completely dead battery.
:-)
Didn't the batteries of those old things have NiCd cells? Dead easy to take the battery apart, construct one out of modern NiMH cells (you'd probably get a 5 hour battery life!) and then you could load it up with classic DOS games that are hell to get running on a modern machine. Then it's not something old and crappy any more, it's something retro and cool
A nuclear battery that could last 10 years would be way better, not only for the users of the batteries, but also for the environment. Think about how much energy you have to use to charge a laptop
As far as I can tell, this is highly unrealistic. By improving the energy gain orders of magnitude, they're making nuclear batteries just barely viable. We're most likely talking miniscule amounts of power, but for a long period of time, not the massive amounts of power needed to run a laptop. The number of layers needed to accumulate a consumer-electronics level of charge is astronomical. Their system does involve the gas being inside microscopic pieces of silicon, so the possibility of astronomical numbers can't be ruled out alltogether, but assuming that that's even possible, the cost of lithographic producing such vast battery arrays suggests these will not be consumer-useful technology for some time, if ever.
What I suspect you'll see this used in initially is very low-drain long-term applications, closer in function to memory capacitors than to power supplies.
Oops, sorry Toomanyhandles, I didn't see your clarification until I posted.
I should clarify a bit: :-) :)
Alpha particles are the ones that can be stopped with paper. Betas are a lot more penetrating. The article suggests, however, that tritium is the isotope in mind for the batteries, and tritium produces very very weak betas, which are much less penetrating than most.
Lots of my (pretty basic) gear has no problem detecting tritium betas through the crystal capsule that contains it, so I think it's safe to say tritium betas can penetrate paper (what percentage of them can penetrate paper is, as always, a different matter), but at the end of the day, they are still easily sheilded, and if a sheet of paper doesn't stop them, keep adding sheets until it does
(Ok, so "keep adding paper" would work even for high energy gamma, but the point is that you shouldn't need many in the case of tritium.
So - betas can't be stopped by paper, that's alpha particles, but in the specific case of tritium betas, being particually weak, several sheets should do it.